Goodbye, my love
by Ruffis Pennyhill
Summary: After Shannon's death a younger Jethro is shaken and finds comfort in a young girl like him self, a wanderer...twenty years later he recieves a phone call from her, she needs help with something personal only to get a BIG surprise; please R
1. Chapter 1

_**Goodbye, my love….**_

_**The parade had been a wild success, the only blaring noise muffled by the symbols and a rhythmic booming making way across a humbled First Street. Confetti, lights, and the putrid smell of dulled butter on hard crunchy popcorn, crushed under a hundred feet and heat baked ketchup over a smothered corn dog, mixed the air.**_

_**Jethro had watched the celebration from afar almost as if he feared he may receive a feeling of cheer or even the slightest joy or envy toward the many pairs of people interlocking hands almost protectively in the crowd as if to lose the one they loved…**_

_**Shannon would have loved the parade… even the wily kids screaming for more; demanding, he would have been hesitant but would give in to her eyes, he always gave into her eyes...**_

_**It had only been a month now – if numbers mattered to Jethro, he counted them like after a while she would return from a trip, but he tried to know better, he demanded to know better…and his only relief was to still be grieving Shannon and not yet even comprehending the loss of his daughter…. relieved he did not grieve both – he could not take it - , even now he could not take it, and so he watched, his face sallow and his thoughts beyond the street caressed now in strings of cheep colored paper and hard candies…**_

_**Across the way came a large brass tuba led barely by an overwhelmed boy who's cheeks had grown bright red, as he passed, almost straying from a perfect line, came a brave girl weaving between the lines like a rhythmic dancer.**_

_**From a view she seemed to put a near damper on the parade, though Jethro could care less now only watching the parade only to envision Shannon's opinion, her giggle at baby Kelly's face smelling the unique air around them.**_

_**The figure was spry and almost agile, and it would be a lie to say for a second the wounds of loss did not disappear, because for a second they did…**_

_**That brunet hair whipped through the crowd, even though it was not to Jethro's taste, something about her cut an incision in Jethro's mind of Shannon, one of his only visions of Shannon without tears in her eyes and crying out in pain – a dream that had been forcefully cast into Jethro's burning heart, his heart wanting answers and licking away like a fire at every memory until the good ones were charred to a crisp and the bad ones perfectly relive able…**_

_**Her name was McKenzie, the name after years had dragged so easily off of Jethro's tongue he could say it with little meaning to him; **_

_**She was not Shannon and the thing that kept her close at heart was the closure, not the kind he could reconcile with a sniper avenging the ones he loved and lived for but a closure with every time McKenzie touched him and giggled, there was no Shannon, it was selfish and quite cruel but her eyes were a hot fire that seemed to melt him, she was agile and she was smart, she countered Jethro completely and when she smiled and when he saw her…she would get angry with him if his hello was not sincere enough and he would come behind her and grab her playfully singing her favorite song into her ear … it was a feeling he had felt with Shannon, but it had been duller then, even though he still loved her with all his heart – **_

_**Much around the time of twenty years later….**_

_**Gibbs was older now and the mane of grey across his head had in fact presented itself nicely, he was stronger, wiser and most defiantly on his account older.**_

_**Gibbs was what they called him now, but no matter what part of his name they chose his grieving sentence was not over and his trust for people had well dwindled very thin.**_

_**He stood over a sky light for a two story building, the surroundings desolate and highly gang ridden, signs of decay and where in the buildings near defiantly showed. **_

_**The sun cast down a large cast of Gibbs, his figure not as spry as once held and his voice not as hollow with fear and loss…**_

_**two bodies lay rigid almost on the dry cement below, and Dinozzo and Ziva contemplated the scene before them,**_

_**they are growing up, Gibbs could almost think to himself, a thought he would reserve until the next movie reference… **_

_**The phone rang a designated theme that showed none of Gibbs' personality but he reluctantly answered its constant shrill ring…**_

_**And in two seconds he heard a voice he had not heard in years, but still as young and beautiful as he concluded the speaker herself would be; and still to that day as the grieving had begin to sew itself up over many years and time, the voice still itself hundreds of miles away made everything inside him heal for just a moment…and she said, "Jethro…?... we need to talk… I know its been a long time;…its about our son" **_


	2. Chapter 2

_Goodbye me love_

_The words cut the air, for a second they stopped the tears that ran down her face, the warm salt feeling coming now to her lips which held a very small quiver at his voice, the voice behind her which came and rose from a weak, spine tingling whisper to a more raised melody that came closer to her ear now quietly._

_She almost laughed, he sung horribly and he wavered off rhythm but now she laughed none the less, a laugh almost as if she were trying to suppress it, to keep her defenses of a depressed, alone attitude up._

_She failed._

"_Nothings going to change my world – Nothings going to change my world…"_

_He kissed her lightly, and she could not suppress another one, her lips grew pale trying to, but she laughed humbly like an accidental unannounced cough._

"_Jethro - ..." she would begin lying against him for what she wanted to be an eternity, and she would not mind, just her breathe and then his heavily falling…_

_McKenzie ran her fingers quietly down his neck, she felt him tense and smiled, she had forgotten why she had been angry – they fought over the stupidest things most of the time she grew angry just to hear the melody in her ear, a reminder he would always be there, and the kiss on the cheek; maybe he had not kissed her enough or opened a door for her once - it was there little game._

_She would resist; for a second, she could not last not speaking or looking at him for more than a few minutes at a time._

_As she ran her fingers down she felt the medals on a uniform, she outlined them with her finger against the cold steel – and remembered why she had been crying,_

_The feeling of warm salted water came back to her lips._

_McKenzie waited for the nerves in her hand to send a message to the brain; but nothing would come, just the involuntary rise to her feet, her beautiful features became rigid but still attractive._

"_Three months Kenzie;"Jehtro speaking informally, trying to hide emotion; he knew she was crying opposing him staring almost wonderingly for answers into the mahogany hotel wall._

_Jethro kissed her one last time, forcing her to turn back to him, but the kiss itself, he needed no force to hold her, he felt her tears – he backed from her, refraining himself from desire – and he left McKenzie alone, left her to her tears…_

_Jethro walked on, forcing every step, in his head the smell of the parade was as putrid as it was that day and the confetti as eye grabbing – and the beautiful girl who weaved in and out of the band ranks as mesmerizing and taunting to him as he walked out the door; the memory of the McKenzie running against the people during the parade festivities, urging him to stop a moment._

_Jethro knew if he considered, he would go back, maybe stay forever._

_His family had died in relation to the military, on a day like today, the clouds not overly dense and the humidity fair; who was he to give up something his life had died for; and Shannon and Kelly were his life… _

_Out there, he told himself truthfully, every face to him could be that killer, no matter if he got the real thing already…_

_McKenzie cried, a slow almost forced cry because she had not yet become accustom to what had just taken place, _

_Goodbyes,_

_In a week the tears would stream and there would be little thought over it because she loved him – _

_Should she have told him? – Or even hinted at the truth, tell me god!! She said demandingly to herself, tell me if the truth was good enough here, enough to keep him here…_

_She was not obsessive truthfully just in love and it was true he felt it too – no longer just closure for Shannon; she believed was the name..._

_How could he go back, if only she would have told him or at least hinted that she was pregnant…?_

_Much around the time of twenty years later…_

_And Jethro still held the phone in his hand, still looking over the scene of two bodies below, only seconds after she spoke the words, had that image of the hotel booted itself into his mind – almost a little too clear, "Nothings going to change my world"… he closed the phone without even uttering a word, did she even deserve it?? – the more painful memory was coming back to no one, nothing about a child, standing on the threshold, much like he was standing now, thinking about the people he cared about just as he was now looking over Dinozzo, David, and Magee; was he selfish for her to wait, or just arrogant to stand over the threshold…waiting; he had imagined their reencounter different –, a long explanation for the things that happened and why she had gone, it was insulting to think he had thought every scenario for why, and it all came down to pressing a button; call ended._

"_Nothings going to change my world, nothings going to change my world"_


End file.
